Quigleys
Sue Anti-Defamation League After Fight With Their
Jewish Neighbors

Evergreen
Couple Portrayed As Anti-Semites Keeps $10 Million
Judgment

By The Associated
Press

DENVER -- A jury award of more
than $10 million to a former Evergreen couple
portrayed as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation
League will stand, after
the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review
it.

The decision on Monday means "this is the end of
the case," said Bruce DeBoskey, director of
the ADL's Mountain States Region.

The victors in the case are William
and Dorothy "Dee" Quigley, whose lawyer,
Jay Horowitz, described them as
"extraordinarily delighted" with the news.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision came without
explanation, and DeBoskey said it was a
disappointment.

"But through the entire
process we have continued to serve the
community," he said. "We do remain committed to
our fight against hatred and racism and bigotry
and extremism and anti-Semitism."

The fight was between the Quigleys and their
Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candice
Aronson.

The Aronsons sought help from the ADL in 1994
after overhearing the Quigleys' comments on a
cordless telephone, a signal that was picked up by
the Aronson's police
scanner.

They said they heard the Quigleys discuss a
campaign to drive them from the upscale Evergreen
neighborhood with Nazi scare tactics, including
tossing lampshades and soap on their lawn and
putting pictures of Holocaust ovens on their
house.

Based on recordings of those calls, they sued
the Quigleys in federal court, Jefferson County
prosecutors charged the Quigleys with hate crimes
and Saul Rosenthal, then the ADL's regional
director, denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites in
a press conference.

But later authorities discovered the recordings
became illegal just five days after they began when
President Bill Clinton signed a new wiretap
restriction into federal law.

The hate charges were dropped, Jefferson County
paid the Quigleys $75,000 and two lawyers on the
ADL's volunteer board paid the Quigleys $350,000 to
settle a lawsuit.

Neither family paid the other anything, the
Aronsons divorced and the Quigleys moved to another
state.

Then in 2000 a federal jury concluded
a four-week trial before Denver U.S. District Judge
Edward Nottingham with a decision the
Anti-Defamation League had defamed the
Quigleys.

The jury awarded them $10.5 million, which is
now estimated at $12.5 million including
interest.

DeBoskey said the ADL had set aside funds to pay
the judgment if necessary.